Appearance: Caroline pretty much just wears loose fitting clothing, most commonly jeans and dark colored shirts. Her shoes are battered sneakers, and she has an oversized leather jacket covering her Quantum Gauntlets. She doesn’t look nearly as old as she is, and is still in great shape. As JETTE, she wears a mask and a blonde wig to hide her identity.

History:
It started in 1963, with Caroline’s cousin Terry Cruz. He was a filthy rich industrialist in Freedom City. A witty, charming genius, there wasn’t anyone who didn’t like him. At least, that’s how Caroline remembers it. He invented a flight belt made out of inexpensive components. He then built a battlesuit around the technology, and became a superhero (The Human Rocket). He was never as famous as The Raven or the Centurion, and he never quite made it to the level of the Freedom League, but he did his part. In 1975, however, Terry made a fateful decision to follow a dream. Humans didn’t need to be stuck on the ground. He’d make it so everyone could fly. He needed a helper, so he recruited the then 15 year old Caroline (already a tech genius in her own right), his own younger brother Donald (the man was a born salesman, better than even Terry) and set to work. A year later, Caroline debuted as JETTE, and the flight belts were put into production. Donald was to run the factory itself, with Caroline as tech support. Terry would help out where he could, but his life was a busy one. He trusted his family with his dream.

At first, everything was okay. There were some unexpected bugs to iron out in the manufacting process, but between Caroline’s skills and Donald’s leadership they pulled through. Then the first shipment disappeared. It turned up in the hands of a band of thieves, with the design weaponized in ways Terry had only seen in his nightmares. He and Caroline stopped them, of course, but that didn’t account for the entire shipment. Orders dried up overnight. His good name was tarnished. AEGIS was investigating him for giving them to those criminals. As if he’d do such a thing. He was going to get to the bottom of this. There wasn’t any need to stop production. They’d just store them in the factory until Terry cleared his name. It took two years (and a few more battles with flight belt equipped criminals), but get to the bottom of it Terry did. Donald, as it turned out, while he shared much of his older brother’s intellect, lacked anything resembling Terry’s integrity. He did, however, share the knack for hiring competent people and putting them in positions to succeed. “The Don”, was a rising star in the criminal underworld, and this was his chance to make it big. Terry refused to let it be at his expense. Turned out Don had his own battlesuit, and a squad of battlesuited muscle (including many of the factory’s key employees) to back him up. Terry had just Caroline. The fight tore the factory apart, and destroyed the stored flight belts. When it was over, “The Don” was presumed dead, his goons had vanished, and any evidence that didn’t point directly to Terry and Caroline Cruz being guilty of his crimes was virtually destroyed.

The trial was quick. The prosecution basically had them cold, and anything that could’ve proven their innocence was long gone. They both got over a decade of hard time. Between that, the lost money spent on the belts and the revelation of just how much money Donald had stolen from his brother’s company, Terry was ruined. Both of them were barred from using their technological skill sets without authorization as a condition of early release. After his release, a broken Terry dropped off the face of the earth. Caroline scraped by doing odd jobs and moving around a lot, until she moved to Bedlam in 2003. Here, nobody looked too closely at your record, and even her AEGIS minder (to make sure she isn’t tech’ing without permission) that pops in now and again is virtually incompetent and probably corrupt as the rest of the law. She started doing unlicensed PI work to pay the bills. Soon afterward, she took her Quantum Gauntlets out of storage. They didn’t work, obviously. They needed refurbishing. But she needed the firepower. Bedlam was a tough place. And somewhere, deep inside, a hero’s heart still beat.

Personality & Motivation:
Caroline is bitter, cynical, and jaded. She’s seen what happens to visionaries who try to change the world for the better, and the worst that humanity has to offer. She has deep and intimate knowledge of how much people suck. So she drinks. Who wouldn’t? However, even 40 years gone, the altruistic core of who she is remains. Some things are just wrong. There’s lines she won’t cross and things she won’t allow to happen in her presence.

Powers & Tactics:
Caroline, wielding the Quantum Gauntlets, is essentially a blaster. Blast, blast, and blast some more. Maybe mix in a thrown item if she’s feeling fancy. She can fly, but this doesn’t often play a role in combat tactics. Really handy for getting the hell out of a bad situation, though. The energy flowing through her body makes her more resistant to damage, as well.

Power Descriptions:
40 years ago, the Quantum Gauntlets were bulky whole hand, arm and shoulder blade covering monstrosities. The refurbish cut them down quite a bit. Without her big leather jacket they’re metal bands around her forearms with a thin strip of flexible metal running up her arms and meeting on her back. They do have a fingerless glove element, which is the control mechanism. But that can pass as regular fingerless gloves. What they do is allow her to channel quantum energy to manipulate the four fundamental forces. They’re not as powerful as they used to be, but they get the job done well enough for Bedlam.

Complications:Where Everybody Knows Your Name: Caroline drinks. A lot. She admits she’s probably a functional alcoholic. The key, she says, is to celebrate the functional part of that term. She does keep it to outside of business hours, most of the time. But sometimes it can get in the way. Especially when humanity’s worst qualities smack her in the face. A GM may award a Hero Point when booze (or the unholy craving for booze) gets in her way.

Using My Mind Is Illegal: Caroline isn’t supposed to be using her technological knowledge and skills without authorization under penalty of re-imprisonment. Her Quantum Gauntlets are a shining example of exactly what she isn’t supposed to be doing. She has an AEGIS agent (who may or may not be as incompetent as she thinks he/she is) assigned to her to make sure she isn’t tech’ing around without permission who can drop by unannounced at any time. A GM may award a Hero Point if this becomes an issue.

Broke As All Hell: Caroline doesn’t have money. She never has money. Her apartment is tiny, and doubles as her office. She doesn’t own a vehicle. Her diet sucks. A GM may award a Hero Point if she needs cold hard cash, as she has practically none.

Quantum Failure: The Quantum Gauntlets are over 40 years old. They were built when she had virtually unlimited funds. They then sat in a box for over a quarter century. Lastly, they were refurbished using very, very limited funds. So they don’t always work properly. The active powers can be weaker than expected, or outright refuse to work. A GM may award a Hero Point for this happening.

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Mechanically, I find no fault here. This sheet is simple, it's clean, and I like it.

Fluff-wise, I find myself in the rare position of weighing in on lore and background concerns. My worries fall into two general categories:

Cheap widely-available super-science flight belts would have had...an impact on history. A design published nationally would have made its way to other countries, even pre-Internet, and even more locally if they were so cheap and reliable as to be misused by some nameless teenager, it's odd to me that they would have just...gone away? Did the government suppress them? Usually super-science never ends up in the public domain of superhero stories because it's just beyond normal people or normal science, or flies beneath the radar; if the actual designs are out and reproducible, though, what happened to them? Even in our own world, the "rocket belts" of the 1960s (my thanks to trollthumper for the reference) made enough of a splash as to be full of backstabbing and secrets, and they were comparatively primitive, limited, and terrible.

Basically, we provide - and outright encourage! - a lot of latitude in enriching the setting and both its present and its history, but something like this would have made a splash, and it leaves me wondering what happened unless it just never got much notice somehow.

I'm having a hard time following the through-line of the government's treatment of Terry Cruz and his 18-year-old companion. I really like the idea of the jaded Bedlam-dweller ex-sidekick, disillusioned with the lofty dreams of super-science, but as-written it sounds like the government threw a scientist and his young assistant in jail because...a villain did a bad thing and a kid violated warranty on something they probably built themselves? I mean, The Anarchist Cookbook was published in 1971, and remains in circulation in some form or another despite literally being a guide to make bombs, drugs, and illegal hacking devices....

Punishing two scientists for the misdeeds of others, and barring those people from doing any further super-science, seems odd for a government like the ones in Freedom City's world. This kind of behavior would make a lot more sense if they ended up taking explicit action in direct criminal activity, or got wrapped up with shady investors who set them up to take the fall, but I'm willing to hear the argument.

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There were a couple of things still bugging me about your previous comment, even in the rewritten. So, minor edits. More belts were produced, but stored in the factory and thus lost in the battle there. And I weakened the "can't tech without being jailed" thing. Permission can be granted. Also, now it was a condition of early release, instead of some weird probation thing. The net effect is the same, but now it makes more sense and your concerns are fully addressed. At least in my mind.